Although a member of the National Civil Police, or PNC, told Efe that the magistrate committed suicide, Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said later that there is still no conclusive information regarding how his death came about.

“It is presumed to be suicide, but it’s a question that still has not been resolved. We still don’t have the analyses by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif) and the experts and police officers who are at the crime scene,” Lopez Bonilla told the daily La Hora.

The body of the judge is being subjected to atomic absorption tests by forensic experts to try and establish the precise cause of death.

According to preliminary reports, the justice was shot in the city of Mazatenango while he was with his bodyguards.